Combustion equipment, such as boilers and furnaces, can be used to transfer heat from one medium to another medium to generate power and/or heat. Efficiency of combustion equipment can include a relation of energy input to energy output. For example, efficiency of combustion equipment can be indicated by combustion efficiency, thermal efficiency, and/or fuel-to-fluid efficiency.
The efficiency (e.g., the efficiency of the combustion process) of the equipment can be reduced by faults and/or degradation in the equipment. Faults can include sudden events that rapidly decrease performance of combustion equipment. Degradations can include slow changes to the combustion equipment that cause degradation of performance of the equipment. For example, degradations can cause an increased input fuel at the same output performance (e.g., efficiency decrease).
Efficiency can be monitored to identify and/or prevent faults and/or degradation of combustion equipment. For instance, monitoring the efficiency can improve equipment performance, reduce levels of harmful emissions by the equipment, and/or extend the stability of the equipment, among other benefits. Further, the combustion equipment can be monitored to comply and/or assist in complying with environmental regulations and/or various regulatory codes.
Monitoring efficiency of combustion equipment, however, can be difficult due to incomplete measurements caused by various instrumentation set in applications of the combustion equipment. Further, a number of variables used to calculate an efficiency may be unknown, such as liquid mass flow. Further, the output of the efficiency may be calculated and/or represented in technical units that may be difficult for a user to understand.